Broody battle

[Allsmiles3]

So I have a few young-ish hens of about 1 year. One, Annabelle, became broody about 2 months ago. It quickly became apparent that she was likely not going to be a good brooder when she began knocking some eggs out of the nest. At first I thought fine--she's getting rid of bad or unfertilized eggs. However, she then Proceeded to sit on the ones that Were found on the floor so I thought (mind you I'm new to this, never having let my chickens hatch before) maybe they ended up on the floor by accident, maybe it wasn't her at all. So I gathered all the eggs out of the box and put them together for her on the floor to see what would happen. She seemed content with that for about two days. Then she started sitting in another box! On freshly laid eggs! And completely ignoring the eggs she'd already been caring for. I cleaned out the eggs on the floor thinking that they'd been abandoned too long and thought there was no hope for her. She actually crushed an egg at some point and I guess it was rotten and so she had egg all over her underside, matted in her feathers. The smell was awful! I bathed her and locked her out of the coop for a few days and was sure to keep the eggs gathered throughout the day and finally she snapped out of it! I figure some hens just aren't cut out to be good mothers. So now it's been a month or so and I have a different broody hen, Dolly!! Yay, I would like to have a few more chickens! So Dolly has been sitting on her nest for about 5 days and this morning when she came out to eat, Annabelle stole her spot. There was an unmistakable argument amongst them so I took Annabelle out allowing Dolly to reclaim
Her nest and now a couple hours later I find annabell AND dolly on the nest! HELP

 

[Kiki]

very cute.
Do you have a dog crate type "thing" you could move the one momma to?
Separate her and the eggs in their own little "room"?

 

[chickens really]

Yes....You will need a Brooder set up for the Broody Hen or things wont be easy.....She will need room to get off the nest to eat,drink and poop...What happens is they get off the nest and another Hen will hop in to lay an egg so she in her Broodiness will go sit on any egg....

Best of luck....

 

[Eckielady]

I leave my broodys in with the gen pop but I mark her eggs and whenever she gets up I always pull new eggs. Are you sure your other chicken isn't just trying to lay an egg in there?